THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Carp need not be

Carp need not be difficult fish to catch. Often it's anglers who make it difficult. On the one hand by bombarding them with more high quality food than it's healthy for them to be eating, while on the other, as a result of being caught repeatedly on those baits or similar, failing to show flexibility, not so much to think outside the box, but to try other tested approaches which may have slipped from favour over the years. Let me quote a couple of examples. Graeme and I once spent a week on Lundy Island exploring the shore and boat fishing options there for the Landmark Trust. One particular day, we'd yomped over the peat encrusted tops to try for wrasse from some rock ledges on the far side. Being so rocky, steep, and wild, bait was always a problem, and all we could muster was a few limpets prised from the rocks and a couple of soft mackerel from the previous day out in the boat. On the way back we must have taken a slightly different route, because we stumbled across a craggy little indentation filled with pea green water on top of the cliffs that we hadn't seen previously. Obviously it was freshwater, and the colouration was due to algae. Then we saw something create a bulge under the surface. some sort of fish. Lundy Island cliff top pond Unable to see exactly what it was due to the discolouration, we sat down and watched, and it happened again. In fact it happened several more times, but still without giving away what was causing it, though surely it must be Intrigued to know what they were, we dug out the lightest monofilament we could find and tied a length to the end eye of our shore rods, then using the smallest hooks we could muster, baited up with mackerel strip on one and limpet on the other, we laid down on the rock edge and lowered them in. That afternoon we finished up with around thirty small carp. The next example is a video made by Graeme himself. This wasn't the first time he'd done what I'm about to recount. In fact, I recorded an audio interview with him on the topic, then persuaded him to repeat it on camera, which he later did. It involved popping into a super-market and buying a roast dinner ready meal comprising all the usual stuff such as slices of meat, potatoes, veg and gravy. This was then taken to a local carp water where every element of that meal was used as bait to catch carp, including even the serviette which he'd soaked in the gravy. Okay, so it isn't serious fishing. It's a joke. But what it does is very clearly demonstrate, as with the Lundy example, is that carp need not be difficult fish to catch and are there to be enjoyed rather than get all secretive and serious about. What Dick Walker might have made of the current 'serious' carp scene is anybody’s guess. Talking to carp historian Chris Ball, who probably has a better handle on what the great man might have made of his legacy than most, the suspicion is that Walker would probably have been appalled. 304

Granted, Richard Walker was from a very different era, but is still held in sufficiently high regard even by today's anglers to be taken note of. So much so that having had the privilege of handling the original Mark IV No. 1 carp rod used by the great man himself to catch Clarissa, when later that evening I mentioned this fact to a couple of carp fanatics, they wanted to shake my hand. As they put it, to touch the hand that had touched the legendary rod. Graeme Pullen, Lundy Carp Don't get me wrong. I'm in no position to criticise anybody for the way they go about getting their angling enjoyment. As a sea angler who merely dabbles in freshwater, though I can still have opinions, it would hardly be fitting for me to poke my nose into a business I know so little about. In addition to that, and rather ironically, my biggest carp have all come to either boilies or tiger nuts while fishing some of the larger irrigation reservoirs on Gran Canaria with carp fishing guide Dave Beecham. We didn't break any pots. The biggest would have been in the high twenties, though it's always nice to catch a PB. But not nearly so nice as picking out individual fish which you can see actually taking your bait at the surface, then having to deal with them on suitably light tackle. To me that's what carp fishing is all about. Associated audio interview numbers: 79, 89, 94, 134, 135, 160 and 185. GRASS CARP Ctenopharyngodon idella Bucket List status – no result yet Though I've never caught a grass carp, I do have some experience of the species, both as an angler and as a scientist. First the angling. Graeme Pullen hooked and landed one of around fourteen pounds on a piece of floating bread crust from one of the weedier lakes on Zyg Gregorek's Anglers Paradise complex a few years back while we were there doing some filming. Despite having a deformity towards its tail, it still went like stink. So I can fully appreciate what anglers love about the species, which despite it being an alien, is no major threat to anything else because it can't breed at our low temperatures, and can therefore simply be allowed to 305